Your DAC is stuck at 44.1kHz. Your music isn't.
SoundHop Pro ONi lives in your menu bar, watches the format Apple Music is actually playing, and switches your DAC's sample rate and bit depth to match — automatically, safely, bit-perfect. TIDAL support is experimental.
Launch price (reg. $24.99) · one-time · 14-day refund
Stop babysitting Audio MIDI Setup.
macOS never changes your DAC’s output format on its own. Play a 24-bit/96kHz album after a 44.1kHz playlist and your "hi-res" listening session is silently resampled to whatever the DAC was last set to.
So you do the ritual: open Audio MIDI Setup, find the device, open the format dropdown, squint at the numbers, switch, go back to the music. Every album. Every session. Or you give up and let everything play at one rate — and quietly stop trusting the "Lossless" badge.
That ritual is exactly the kind of job a menu bar app should do for you — correctly, every time, without being told.
Detect. Match. Guard.
Detect
SoundHop Pro detects the sample rate and bit depth of what Apple Music is actually playing — not what the file browser claims, what playback reports.
Match
It sets your DAC’s output format to match, so a 24/96 master reaches the DAC as 24/96. No manual Audio MIDI Setup trips, no silent resampling.
Guard
Before and after every switch, guard logic verifies the change is the right one — and blocks the wrong ones. Automation you can leave on.
Everything the switcher in your head does — automated.
Auto format matching
Bit-perfect sample-rate and bit-depth matching for Apple Music playback, end to end.
TIDAL (experimental)
Best-effort format detection for TIDAL. Clearly labeled experimental — see the FAQ for what that means.
One-click output switching
Every output device in one menu bar popup. Switch with a single click, no System Settings dive.
Smart Priority
Rank your devices once; when a preferred output appears (or disappears), SoundHop switches for you.
AirPods Guard
Stops your Mac from hijacking your AirPods when you only meant to use them with your phone.
Profiles
Desk, headphones, living room — save device-and-format setups and recall them instantly.
DAC format presets
Pin exact sample-rate/bit-depth presets per DAC for manual control when you want it.
Korean & English
Fully localized UI, docs and support in both languages.
We don’t just follow the signal. We stop the wrong follow.
Naive auto-switching reacts to every reading it sees — including the wrong ones. SoundHop Pro ships three guards built from real-world failure cases:
Same-track downshift guard
A spurious low-rate reading mid-track won’t drag your DAC down from 96kHz to 44.1kHz. Downshifts during the same track are treated as suspect and blocked.
Drift recovery
If the DAC ends up off-target — another app changed it, a device reset it — SoundHop notices the drift and restores the correct format instead of leaving it wrong.
Track-change safety window
Format switches are aligned to a safe window around track changes, so matching doesn’t fight playback mid-song.
There are excellent free tools. Here’s what we sell.
LosslessSwitcher is a great open-source project — if it covers your needs, use it and enjoy. SoundHop Pro exists for what it doesn’t cover: guards against wrong switches, a notarized and supported build, and ongoing compatibility maintenance. SoundSource is a superb all-round audio utility that solves a different problem — many people run it alongside SoundHop.
| SoundHop Pro | LosslessSwitcher (free OSS) | SoundSource ($47) | Audio MIDI Setup | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic sample-rate matching | Yes | Yes | No | Manual only |
| Bit-depth matching | Yes | Limited | No | Manual only |
| TIDAL support | Experimental | No | No | Manual only |
| Wrong-switch guards (downshift / drift / safety window) | Yes — 3 guards | No | n/a | n/a |
| Notarized & signed for distribution | Yes (Developer ID) | Varies by build | Yes | Built into macOS |
| Ongoing maintenance & support | Dedicated, incl. streaming-app fixes | Community-driven | Yes | Apple (no format automation) |
| Price | $19.99 launch (reg. $24.99), one-time | Free | $47 | Free (built in) |
Comparison reflects our understanding as of July 2026 — details of third-party tools may change. SoundSource focuses on per-app audio routing, EQ and volume, which SoundHop does not do; they complement each other.
Local-first. Honestly licensed.
Private by architecture
- Runs 100% locally — playback detection and switching never leave your Mac
- No account, no analytics, no tracking, no telemetry
- Preferences stay on your Mac
A license you actually own
- One-time purchase — $19.99 at launch, no subscription, ever
- All 1.x updates included — streaming-app compatibility fixes stay free through 1.x
- 1 Mac per license, Add a Mac for +$14.99 (up to 3 Macs)
- 14-day refund, no questions asked
One honest exception: Pro license activation requires a short online check. After that the app runs offline with a 72-hour re-verification grace window, and moving to a new Mac is self-service. Details in the FAQ.
Quick answers
Does SoundHop Pro need an internet connection?
Only for license activation — a short online check. Everything else runs locally. If you go offline, the app keeps working with a 72-hour re-verification grace window.
Which players are supported?
Apple Music is fully supported for automatic bit-perfect matching. TIDAL support is experimental: detection is best-effort and may lag or need a manual preset. Fixes ship free throughout 1.x.
Will it fight my other audio tools?
SoundHop only changes the system output device and the DAC’s output format. It doesn’t touch per-app routing or EQ, so tools like SoundSource can run alongside it.
What if it’s not for me?
14-day refund window. Email us with your order reference and we’ll refund you — no questions asked.
One purchase. Yours for all of 1.x.
SoundHop Pro ONi
one-time · 1 Mac
- Automatic bit-perfect matching for Apple Music
- TIDAL (experimental)
- Same-track downshift guard, drift recovery, safety window
- Smart Priority, AirPods Guard, profiles, DAC presets
- All 1.x updates + streaming-app compatibility fixes
- Add a Mac +$14.99 (up to 3 Macs)
- 14-day refund
Just want a better output switcher?
SoundHop ONi — the free App Store app — does one-click output switching, favorites and profiles. No bit-perfect matching.
Free on the App Store